VLC celebrates 6 billion downloads with new AI subtitles feature [Video]

At CES 2025, non-profit organization VideoLAN announced that their open-source media player app VLC Media Player crossed an incredible milestone: over 6 billion downloads, TechCrunch reports.

According to a LinkedIn post written by VideoLAN’s president Jean-Baptiste Kempt, the user base for VLC continues to grow despite the ubiquitous popularity of streaming services.

To celebrate its undying popularity, VideoLAN demoed at CES 2025 an upcoming feature for VLC Media Player that uses generative AI to automatically create subtitles on the fly based on the media content being played, and can even translate across languages in real time.

The feature will use open-source AI models that can run locally on the user’s device without having to connect to the internet. This is a huge deal for anyone who consumes foreign-language content, who’s hard of hearing, or simply prefers subtitles while watching. And it’s especially nice for users who still rely on VLC to do things that …